Midway Arcade Treasures 2: Hands-On

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Relive Midway's past. No really, do it!

By Craig Harris

The more powerful the systems get, the more frequently the appearance of classic game compilations. It takes the power of a PlayStation 2, Xbox, or GameCube to get pixel-perfect games originally made for the Atari, Intellivision, NES, or arcades. It's funny how that works.

Actually, it's the power of the systems that make these compilations possible. Though the hardware in the original machines are barely the power of today's calculators, it takes a pretty beefy CPU to run programs that make the new systems "think" they're the old system. These programs are called "emulators," and developers have been creating these things for years. But it's only the past decade or so that emulating older gaming systems have come into the mainstream, because reprogramming the games from scratch takes far longer than "simply" tricking the system into thinking it's another system altogether.

The latest package of emulated classics is coming from Midway this October. The company released Midway Arcade Treasures to incredible success late last year, offering nearly two dozen arcade games on the console for a measly 20 bucks. Because of that package's success, the company's following it up with another 20 pack of classics for a buck a game, featuring titles in the Midway-owned brands, including Williams and Atari Games. Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is still deep in development, but Midway has offered up an early look at the game in action on the PlayStation where we can see what direction the sequel package is going.

For the second compilation package, Midway will be including the following games: A.P.B., Arch Rivals, Championship Sprint, Cyberball 2072, Gauntlet 2, Hard Drivin', Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat III, NARC, Pit Fighter, Primal Rage, Rampage World Tour, Spy Hunter 2, STUN Runner, Timber, Total Carnage, Wizard of Wor, Xenophobe, and Xybots. Original plans were to have the original Mortal Kombat as well as the arcade helicopter game Steel Talons in the package, but they were removed; in their place comes the little seen Kosmik Kroozr' and Wacko.

Total Carnage -- Love it!

Once again, the company's going to Digital Eclipse for the package of classics. The development studio made a name for itself as the team responsible for the very first commercially-released videogame emulation back on the Macintosh in the mid-90s. The years beyond saw the company reproduces classics on systems from the SNES, Genesis and Game Boy, all the way up to last year's compilation pack on the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox.

For the interface, the developer has scrapped the clunky and confusing "hieroglyphic" style menu from the first one, offering up a much cleaner interface featuring a "DNA" motif. Each game is represented as a "rung: in a DNA "ladder," the development team using either the original arcade machine's marquee artwork or simply the logo of the game itself. By choosing a particular "rung", players can jump straight into that particular game, or boot up special features, like interview videos with the designers, or machine artwork, or a biography of the game itself. It's a simple and clean interface, and far more intuitive than the original Midway Arcade Treasures released last year.

Since the version we've played is a work-in-progress, many of the games, while playable, aren't quite ready for primetime. Champion Sprint is the most complete of the games in Midway Arcade Treasures 2...but that's mostly because its predecessor, Super Sprint had already been emulated in the first package. And the game wasn't much of an update beyond a few new tracks.

The rest of the package is currently a mixed bag of quality in the preview builds we've played. The early games, like Timber and Wizard of Wor are pretty much completed and play identically to their arcade counterparts. APB and Gauntlet 2 run at full speed but features a bit of slow down during the action when the screen clutters up with enemies. Hard Drivin', the 3D driving game, runs at full speed but doesn't have sound emulated yet. And the most recent games in the batch, including Mortal Kombat II,Mortal Kombat III and Primal Rage are currently only working at half-speed or less.

The developers are definitely making strides in development, though, and we're confident that the final product will turn out excellent. In fact, at this weekend's Classic Gaming Expo in San Jose, Midway had the most current version at its booth. All three versions were on display, and the version that was the furthest along was, surprise, the GameCube game. Most games were either running at 100% emulation on the Cube...or were running too well and needed their speeds turned down a bit to be accurate arcade versions.

Twenty bucks for twenty games is never a bad deal. But when those twenty games are award-winning arcade hits...that's one hell of a package. There are a few games, like the Mortal Kombat duo, that are worth the pricetag alone. Midway Arcade Treasures 2 shouldn't be missed, no matter if you're an old-school gamer or someone who's never even experienced the originals when they hit the gameroom those many years ago.